


Cry YOur Heart Out

by Awlit



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 19:01:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Awlit/pseuds/Awlit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's a summary, but just a very generic spoiler?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cry YOur Heart Out

Sometimes things hurt.  
and it’s painful. Sad.  
And you wonder if it was worth it.

Tony Stark considers this as he swirls around the glass in his hand, chilled contents swirling.

He plans on drinking till he is sound asleep.

Because for the first time in a long time, Tony had dreamed.

It’s an unrealistic dream, one that never happened, but still might as well have, because it’s so pleasant and familiar. And it’s so close to ‘peace’ that’s Tony ever tasted in forever. It’s unfair that it wasn’t real.

The dream starts out like normal. Steve and Tony are arguing, back and forth. It’s over something trivial and stupid, like some of their fights are. 

And then its the sudden change of scene. Tony is saying sorry, and he really means it. Steve knows this. And then Steve is smiling that smile that is heartbreakingly sweet.

And Tony can’t look away, even if he actually tried. Steve is saying something low and soft in that warm voice of his and Tony feels the arms hold him, squeezing, gently, softly, closely. It’s warm, and buzzing… makes Tony feel lightheaded. It’s comfort. 

It’s peaceful, and happy, and Tony feels like a kid at Christmas who got the one gift he ever wanted. Tony hugs him back, and in that moment, suddenly, all he feels is immense happiness. Like everything fit together, it’s all perfect, and this was ‘home.’ There’s a big smile on his face. There’s no pain here. Only Steve… and hugging.

And a second later, the embrace is unbearably painful. Tony cannot see why.

It’s a lovely lovely dream, really, and he doesn’t want to wake up. But Steve won’t let him stay. Stupid cute stupid captain stupid america stupid rogers. Stupid Steve Rogers.

Because it’s the real Steve Rogers that wakes him up in the morning, coldly and cruelly. Not the actual Steve, but Tony’s memory and reality’s painful reminder of him that causes him to snap awake.

The dream world is gone, and Tony Stark is alone on the couch, and he is cold. And alone. Tony sits up.

Tony sees Steve on couch. It’s only for a second, but it’s enough. He’s right next to him, so close he could touch. Worse, he’s smiling.

Tony blinks and he’s gone. 

This is how Tony woke up in the morning. This is not how Tony usually wakes up.

These mirages have become less frequent. He’s been taking the recommended dosage, Doctor Pepper’s orders. And they had been working. It’s likely the alcohol.

Oh yes, Tony Stark has had too many a drink. But Tony Stark does not care. Pepper and Jarvis had long given up scolding him on his alcohol intake. And Rhodey did too- well, Rhodey wasn’t here anymore, was he? 

And it wasn’t just Rhodey. Others had carried on too, parted ways. The Avengers had disbanded… simply because it had been about time. The Avengers members had moved on with their lives, every Avenger, with the exception of Iron man, Tony.

The rest were happy though, something Tony envied but congratulated them for. Happy and selfish enough to want him to be happy so they could keep more happiness.

But Tony doesn’t blame him. They’re only looking out for him because they care. Because they care about him. Because they’re good people. Because they are his friends.

Tony thinks this.

Cause Tony thinks now, he has had a lot of time to waste doing it. He’s an expert at wasting time. It’s all he does. All he can do. Mostly he’s lost the ability to can.

But even more than that, he remembers. He remembers the stars and stripes. There’s red, white, and blue. And smiles. And Blue honest eyes. Those eyes are probably the thing he can see most clearly. They’ve faded but they’re still there.

And it sums up all that’s Captain America.

The grin that made his day. The arguments that hurt too much to just be about friendship. The banter that made life more interesting. Hugs, pats on the back, that always made him feel lighter.

That is Steve Rogers.

It was those little things, the signs that he was so blind to, he never had the chance to have them ignored.

And Why didn’t Tony see it before?

He realized a little too late, a lot too late. He’d done nothing. Then there was the Civil War. Captain America was gone. And then it was really ‘too late.’ Because Captain America was Steve. And so Steve was gone too.

Gone… no he wasn’t gone. Dead isn’t ‘gone’. Gone implies he’s only moved, gone somewhere else, is away, but still here existing somewhere. Just at a distance, and that he is at an accessible place.

But Steve Rogers is dead. And dead is nonexistent. Steve Rogers is non existent. 

And it hurts.  
Still hurts.

It hurts so much Tony can’t cry. 

He has cried. He knows he has. He remembers when he used to. Never when he was awake are really concious of it. Not so much. Mostly when he was sleeping, even in those rare pleasant dreams.

So Tony stopped sleeping.

He didn’t sleep for nights, then more days. Than 5 days. A week. Suddenly 2 weeks. Then it became a month.

Pepper Pots intervened. Just in time.

She talked him into sleeping again, taking pills to make the dreams go away, staid nights with him just to make sure he was okay. Stayed with him during the breakdowns.

He eventually became stable enough to do things on his own again. He became reinvested in his work a little. He started eating again. Pepper kept with him, and he felt okay.

It’s difficult to guess if she knew. Why this all was… what he was doing. If she did, she was careful not to say. Maybe it would have been better if she had.

Then, on a day when Pepper was out shopping, he finally decided he would clean up Captain America’s room. The other avengers had cleared out from all the other rooms. It was the only room still untouched.

He thought it would help. That he was okay now.

He was wrong.

He wasn’t prepared for the familiar furniture. The organized shelf. The unused computer, buried under a box, unmade bed, and newspaper print. Mementos from the past. It smelled like Steve. It was Steve everywhere.

 

Tony had sat down on the bed, and breathed it in.

Tony’s mind had wandered. And distracted by the memorabilia, went into suddenly unguarded territory. The “what if” question. It’s hard to say if its worse or not that Steve didn’t know. Or that Tony didn’t know what Steve knew about what Steve felt about him. Tony had never asked. He wished he had.

It was then he saw Steve’s open book on the nightstand, dust on the pages, like he’d just been reading, he’d just been there. And it was a book Tony had gotten Steve on a whim, because he figured Steve liked poetry.

But what caught his attention was the picture frame next to it, faced down.

When turned up, it showed Steve smiling with his arm on the shoulder of a beaming Tony with the other Avengers. The day he’d been so happy, celebrating some nameless made up event with his Avenger family. And also the time when he finally realized… in that one moment when he just looked at Steve.

And all it took was laughter and his name from a fondly amused smile.

“Tony”

The glass cracked.

Tony had suddenly felt sick.

When Pepper came back, Tony was locked in the room. He did not come out for three days. Pepper had got him out eventually- he doesn’t remember how exactly- only that she eventually did and put him to bed in his own room. 

But a week later, he seemed fine again. And it was like that incident never happened. Tony had revived back to before that time in Steve’s room. After a few more days, Pepper finally thought it was safe enough for her to leave on a very important one month business trip.

She said goodbye and left, promising to come back.

She didn’t come back soon enough, not that very night.

The next day, Tony started drinking. He didn’t stop even after he was over drunk. Soberness became a stranger. He was drunk night and day. His bloodstream was completely diluted with alcohol.

Three weeks went by like this. Then Jarvis tattled.

Pepper Pots left early from her meeting and came again, but this time with others, the rest of the Avenger gang. They must have thought it would help. It did, for a time.

He came out of the house again, once or twice. He did not feel as lonely. Things seemed good.

Till all he saw was Steve.

According to the psychologists Pepper hired, they were hallucinations, projections of a dead man. But to Tony, that made them no less real. Tony already knew they weren’t real to begin with.

But that didn’t stop the x-avengers and friends from worrying. They did all they could. Tony slowly, slower than before, got better. And despite the illusions, their presence helped. He stopped drinking as much, was still depressed, but wasn’t killing himself with liquor. 

This relieved them. Though they would be happy to stay, they had lives to live. Clint and Natasha has SHIELD work. Bruce had a real job. And Thor had a kingdom to take care of. They couldn’t stay forever.

After Tony showed some improvement, but it was obvious it was all he was willing to or would do, one by one, they moved out. They all eventually left. 

Not a week later, Tony was drinking again… not as badly. But still, drinking.

There’s only so much his friends, and Pepper, and loyal butler bot can do.

But for their sakes, Tony kept up appearances. They thought he was ‘okay.’ Not great but not dying. And that’s what seemed to matter. As long as he was leaning toward the mend.

Or so he let them think.

They thought of him with relief and believed him to be better because of their efforts. They were happier for it. Good for them.

Meanwhile, Tony slowly and silently fell. And he told Jarvis not to tell.

But eventually Tony finally fell too far.

Five years ago, on a December late night, in the middle of winter, Tony Stark nearly drank himself to death. He lay on the couch everyone use to hang out on, watching an old black and white tv show I love lucy that Steve liked so much. 

That was the last time Tony cried. 

He had too much alcohol, more than his body could take. He drank, and drank, and drank, and overdosed, and woke up choking on his own vomit.

That’s when Jarvis finally went against his command and called Pepper. 

He could have died. He knows this, but it doesn’t scare him. Not like it should have. He wonders if he might have been able to. 

But there was good old Jarvis and Pepper, and they picked him up and put him back together… even though they knew he was just a fallen humpty dumpty.

All eggshell and no yolk.

When he woke up, he had been disappointed. And poor lovely Pepper Pots, he had made her cry then. “Don’t do something like that ever again, stupid.” She had said. “I won’t” he’d tell her. Then he promised her he would stay if only to make her not cry.

Tony has never liked promises.

Promises are so easily broken. Especially the unspoken ones. “I won’t die before you.” Steve said it once, only once… on that one insignificant mission, but Iron Man believed it from there on out a million times.

In a way, Steve kept his promise. Steve didn’t die before Tony died. Because Tony had died when Steve died.

But the others don’t understand that.

He hates them and he loves them for it. He hates them for saving him. But he loves them because they love him. And let’s face it, he loves them because he loved them.

And that’s why he stays, not because he needs to or wants. Not because of some lame long gone survival instinct. But because Pepper and others needed him to. 

It was only those he cared about that kept him there. Even now, he cared for them. At least he remembers caring for them, and that means something doesn’t it. 

And despite everything, even though he hates it, he’s tired, he keeps his promise and he is still here.

And who the hell said Tony Stark couldn’t be selfless?! Because they didn’t know him, not like Pepper, or Jarvis, or… Steve.

Steve would want him to stay. Tony knows this.

But Tony had wanted Steve to stay, and he hadn’t either. 

Captain American Hypocrite.

Tony hates Steve some too.

He feels pain behind his eyes again so he drinks another glass and feels only barely better. But ‘barely’ is as best as it gets.  
And the pain behind his eyes dull a little more. It’s still unbearable. But the less he feels and the less its there. And the less he’ll likely cry.

But that was a while ago. Years ago since he cried. Tony cannot cry now. He hasn’t, couldn’t. He’s too damn tired.

He’s tired of a lot of things. He’s tired of being tired, of waiting, of pain, of people. He is tired of Steve. And more than that, he’s tired of ‘time,’ time without steve.

They say time can heal wounds. It can. This time, time couldn’t. It couldn’t fix Tony Stark.

Oh certainly. Tony had gotten older. Years went by and seasons changed. Time had done its duty and all that. Tony aged. His hair was mostly silver. He’d gotten wiser and less cocky, and weaker. 

But Tony didn’t feel better. And after a while, he didn’t feel worse either.  
He just felt numb.

Like the emptiness after a long catharsis. Like he’d poured out all the emotions he had. And now couldn’t make anymore. 

In some ways, the nothingness was worse than the pain. Because it was loss… like a void that couldn’t be filled.

He thinks he’s always had that void to a certain extent. Maybe. Just never this hollow.

He’s staring at the glass and he’s sure there had been three ice cubes in it a minute ago. That was time, passing by again.

He’s downing the thirteenth glass and all he could think of is a cliched line of “Third times a charm.”

The question comes back again: Was it worth it?  
Yeah, it’s worth it. It was worth it then. And now.  
Now Tony is not so sure.

He raises another glass and lets himself drown in it.

 

He’s not sure when the scenery changed. But it’s loud. There are long wails of beeps and ambulances. He’s dimly aware of voices.

Then he’s being rushed to the hospital. And this scene is very familiar… Pepper crying over his face, the white walls, voices. Like last time. He thinks he sees other concerned faces too. 

Everyone’s here. He wants to say something, but his mouth is dry. He’s still choking on himself. Something like I’m sorry, or along those lines.

He’s not sure who it’s more specifically directed to.

But the lights dim. If there was a cry, he can’t hear it.

…………………

Tony wakes up to a light. Sure enough, he sees the white hospital walls.

He sighs and leans back in the chair, staring blankly at the wall.

“You’re awake.”

It only takes those two words to recognize the voice and his eyes snap open.

Then Tony sits up and looks. And there’s Steve smiling, sitting in the chair, the obsolete newspaper he always likes to read in his hand, smiling, breathing. Alive. Steve Rogers in all his living glory, sitting next to him by his hospital bed.

Tony rubs his eyes, because that’s not really him-

And Steve is still there. Here, really here. Tony doesn’t know how, but he knows it.

This is not a memory.

Steve smiles at him, head lilted curiously. “We thought you’d never wake up.”

“Steve?”

Steve gives him a funny look. “Who else?”

Tony doesn’t answer immediately, so Steve takes the time to say something.

“You’ve been sleeping a long time Tony.”

Tony has to wait a moment for the words to sink in. 

“What year is it?” Because maybe he’d magically gone back in time- because that’s improbable- but not unheard of-

“Ton-?”

“Answer the question.” His voice is desperate, but he needs to know more than anything.

And Steve, a little bewilderedly, answers but Tony can barely hear it, cause Steve’s here and that’s impossible- But wait, wasn’t that year Steve just said before the Civil War?

Tony’s mind is racing, because this was impossible. He was dreaming. But he wasn’t.

He catched the last part of what he says. “-ause you’ve been in a coma.”

“A what?”

“Coma… That time you were hit by the Skrull-” Steve’s eyebrows furrow in that achingly familiar way. “Weren’t you listening?”

For the life of him, he can’t remember what a Skrull even is. 

“Yes!” But it’s more an exclamation of joy than an answer.

He lunges, and suddenly surprised Steve has a lapful of emotional Tony. The sound of door and footsteps takes second place in the background. 

Tony cries and hugs Steve and everyone else, his avenger family, who he looks up to see walking in, bewildered. And he keeps crying and crying and laughing and laughing. And it hurts, but this is a good hurt.

And it’s funny because Steve looks so disturbed. Tony would laugh even more if he wasn’t hiccuping so bad.

And maybe he kisses Steve, but he’s too damn happy too care. They’re all confused. But he’ll explain it to them later. Maybe, or maybe not.

And he doesn’t have it in him care. And he’s just so happy. Because he has a chance to change everything, to fix it. And he will.

And finally,  
finally. 

He’s got everything back.

He’s got Steve.

And he can finally say it… the cause of all that pain. And he can do it while laugh crying and looking at Steve through half bleary eyes in front of the others.

“I love you.”  
…………………………………

Off in another world, somber figures look over the burial of an Anthony Stark as he is buried beside Steve Rogers-  
“-just like he wanted.” Pepper Pots says sadly.  
The remaining ex-avengers look on silently.

_____________________________________________  
[The point of this story isn’t to say how Tony Stark is in fact dead and that this was heaven or something… or indeed all a coma, and a very mean trick in which it was all a dream. [last i checked coma patients don’t wake up having had thirty year long dreams, least not that i know of] The truth is for those who were confused it. The body of Anthony E. Stark died on the Earth 349 but the soul moved to a different Earth, Earth 943 where Tony Stark’s body was still alive, but that earth’s tony stark had moved on. Will I make another chapter of this? Who knows? I;m tired and it’s 2 o clock in the effin morning. I’m too tired to say something witty. And I’m thirsty.  
Good night.]


End file.
